Marcus Stone was born in Manchester, the son of Frank Stone 1800-1859 ARA.

He was principally a painter of historical genre pictures, many of them set in the Regency. It is quite surprising for us now, to realise that the Victorians did not regard their fashions and dress as in the least picturesque. They felt that the high-waisted flowing ladies dresses of the early nineteenth century were much more attractive-and they were right.

Stone did not start painting until he was in his mid-twenties. Many of his pictures showed the trials of young love, often with an element of humour. During the last twenty years of the nineteenth century Stone was very successful, and one of his paintings was bought by the Chantry Bequest for £800, a substantial sum at that time.

It comes as something of a surprise to realise that Stone was an unconventional individual. He was a Republican, a political radical, an atheist, and he railed against Victorian prudery. Stone was highly intelligent, and a noted raconteur. As well as a painter he was a prolific and successful book illustrator, amongst others providing illustrations for Charles Dickens, a personal friend.

Marcus Stone lived until 1921, when Victorian art was much despised, and his pictures were even more despised than most. He was the subject of an obituary in The Times.

Sources : A number, but I must mention the work of the late Jeremy Mass.

Marcus Stone-Contemporary Comment

By A G Temple

From Painting in The Queen’s Reign Published To Commemorate

The Diamond Jubilee of 1897

Commencing with a very distinct leaning towards history, Marcus Stone, the son of the well-known genre painter Frank Stone, is known better at the present day by his own charming genre, in which, on a stately terrace or in a well ordered garden, he places those dainty scenes illustrative more frequently of “la belle passion” than of any other sentiment. But before he took to this path, the page of history had a fascination for him, and never before was the gallant court favourite Piers Gaveston so vividly realised as when, in 1872, the painter fixed on this page of English history. He has made him, as history tells us he was, elegant of shape and carriage, and has, at the same time, well-imagined the character of the thoughtless sovereign Edward 11, in his rich attire and impolitic behaviour. There is action in the picture for some brilliant sally of wit, in which Gaveston often distinguished himself, and which calls fort the slender King’s shallow laugh, has hit its mark among the indignant nobles grouped on the right, or among the Queen and her ladies, who are seated at needlework. The sense of room and expanse in the picture is a pleasant feature, accounted for, no doubt, by the broad park-lands which the terrace overlooks, and which is well in its place in relation to the figures. The work was until recently in the possession of Mr George Fox, of Elmhurst, Lichfield, and was at the Guildhall in 1894.

 “Le Roi est mort-Vive le Roi!” similar in shape to the Piers Gaveston, and once in the possession of Mr Thomas Taylor, of Aston Rowant, but now owned by Mr Robert Wharton of Waplington Park, Pocklington, was painted the following year, 1873, one of the most touching incidents of the picture being the hound which draws away from the bustle of royalty in the room towards his late master’s bed and looks with anxious eye upon the dead King.

There have been, of course, many others of an historical character from him, and occasionally from Shakespeare; but the subjects we are now accustomed to look for are those in which some tender emotion is expressed, in surroundings which greatly aid its interpretation-a stately grove, a broad expanse of lawn, an elegant terrace. In shape they are usually a narrow upright, about 60” by 27”, or a long oblong. One of the most attractive of the earlier ones of this character was the single figure of a pretty girl, seated on a long garden bench, in the glow of sunset, but with signs in bench, steps, and elsewhere of a dilapidated estate. To woo her comes the rich squire of a neighbouring domain, but “Il y a toujours un autre,” and these word are the title of the work.

Then Mr Aird’s “Fallen Out” and “Reconciled” came a year or two afterwards, simple of theme, and set in quiet woodland. In 1888 “In Love” was painted, and a very pretty picture it was: she placidly sewing, he on the opposite side of the rustic table gazing intently at her; the pleasant summer air about the two in the old-fashioned garden. The costume of the times in which these scenes are laid is of course helpful to the pictorial effect-the long thin Empire dress for the lady, and the very picturesque dress of that time for the men.

Sometimes only the single figure of a girl is seen, such as in Garden Flowers” of 1890; but more often an incident not without drama is given as in “A Passing Cloud” in 1891, or, better still, in “Two’s Company, Three’s None.” The handsome young couple are happy enough in their reposeful garden, and sadly thoughtless of the third figure that passes away from them to the left. No point seems to have been lost in this agreeable composition; in line and colour it is pictorially good, and that publishers eagerly seek to reproduce examples of this kind that come from his hand is very easily understood. His themes are quiet and entertaining, the effects he gets in his garden scenes are most pleasing for their unquestionable grace and delicacy, and his execution has always had in it that refinement of touch which gives to his picture a sense of completeness as a work of fine art.